Assembly probes for pick and place assembly of electronic components often rely on mechanical grippers (i.e. devices which mechanically grab, squeeze, or pinch the components) or vacuum suction cups and collets. However, as electrical components become smaller, mechanical and vacuum assembly probes may become ill suited to effectively performing such tasks.
Mechanical grippers may be expensive to fabricate in increasingly smaller dimensions. In addition, regardless of size, mechanical grippers take up space when trying to place a small component in a tight location. Thus, even if mechanical grippers may be made small enough, they may not be easily maneuverable and may run into mechanical interference trying to access tight gaps, particularly due to the manner in which they grab the component. As such, spacing between the components for assembly may need to be increased, which is undesirable.
Mechanical grippers may also operate more slowly when handling small, delicate components, so that they have enough force rate control not to crush a component. This limitation decreases through put time.
Vacuum grippers may see a diminishing effective force as the area of the components they are picking up decreases, or if the components have irregular surfaces. As such, vacuum grippers may exert a very small force over small components, which may result in mis-picks, or the vacuum gripper not being able to pick up the component at all.
Recently, an ultra-small computational component has emerged in the industry which is referred to as a “mote”. Motes are computational components that act as sensing systems, and are so small (e.g. <1 mm3) as to resemble a mote of dust. Picking and placing the next generation of ultra-small computational components and other electronic components requires a pick and place probe which is suitable for use with such sized components.